Skylanders toys continue to print money for Call of Duty publisher.

Activision sold "two or three times" the amount of Skylanders toys it expected to, the firm has revealed.

Talking to VideoGamer.com, Activision's product specialist Noah Kircher-Allen said that the firm had "very high hopes for [Skylanders]" prior to its release last October, but demand for the toys "was a lot higher than we anticipated".

"When you launch any new IP you always hope it's going to be big," Kircher-Allen told us. "We had very high hopes for it, but it far exceeded our expectations as far as how hot it was. As far as toys to software, it was maybe two or three times what we thought it was going to be. It was a lot higher than we anticipated."

Kircher-Allen agreed that the franchise seemed to get off to a slower than expected start prior to Christmas 2011, but sales picked up tremendously after consumers "realised that they wanted to expand their experience".

"Once people bought the software and started playing around with the game, they realised that they wanted to expand their experience, and that's what sent them back into stores," he continued. "And they were also seeing the value proposition in gaining additional toys."

But Kircher-Allen doesn't just put the game's success down to the toys.

"There are a few different ingredients [to Skylanders' success]," he added.

"The game is fantastic - even without the toys it would be a good game. The second piece is the magic of it all. When you're appealing to the age groups that we're really targeting, anything magical resonates quite well.

"And lastly, it made sense. It would be one thing if the toys didn't have such an interactive role in the game, and the fact that they can actually save game data and become these interactive figures, that also resonates quite well. So it wasn't just activating a character in the game - it made sense to have this toy and bring it to life inside the game."

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, which launched in October 2011, was the number one console game during the period of January-April 2012, based on revenues earned.

The next Skylanders title, Skylanders: Giants, is due for release later this year. The game will ship alongside over 20 new Skylanders figures, including a series of luminous giants.

In the same interview, Kircher-Allen told VideoGamer that Activision may look into a Skylanders movie and TV show "in the future".